It is finally time to stir my stumps and finish my long-standing, perpetually half-finished AE86 Corolla resto-mod project. I need an explain-like-I'm-Five because I've never tackled something like this before.

At the moment, the engine is running with a MS3Pro, utilizing aftermarket GM-style sensors that came with the kit from DIYautotune. I've got an array of sensors mounted in the oil pan, airbox, oil pump, coolant neck, etc...and they are wired into the ECU and the car is running.

Then I got the hare-brained idea to add a bunch of gauges to get important data on engine health to the driver, like AFR, oil pressure/temp, coolant temp, and went with AEM analog for that 80's works rally/race car look. I've got the Wideband AFR gauge working, but haven't tackled any ancillaries.

How do I connect all this stuff together? Per the instructions with the gauges, I could add in duplicate sensors (with T-fittings, or welding in even more bungs) and drive the gauges with their own sensors, totally independent of the MS3Pro install. What I'm wondering is could I splice the gauge into the wiring between sensor and ECU, or is that way too noisy? Could I drive the ECU with output from the gauges, essentially running them inline between the sensor and the MegaSquirt3 Pro? Or should I leave the gauge->MS3 Pro wiring alone and try to run the gauges off a PWM output from the MegaSquirt3 Pro if I have enough outputs and enough patience to build all the curves? What's the best way to do this?

Sorry if this seems like an idiotic question, but this is not my area of expertise, so I'm looking for some help here. Thanks!

Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter)
Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) Dork
8/4/20 9:29 p.m.

I have run old vdo gauges off the pwm outputs but takes some fiddling. Best using test mode first to see if you can sim the gauge inputs, you may need some pullup resistors as well. If you can get good pwm/value mapping inputting the sensors to the pro is fairly easy. Nice part this way is you can log all the values. 

Honsch
Honsch New Reader
8/5/20 2:07 a.m.

Analog gauges aren't nearly nerdy enough.

Cheap android tablet/phone and Shadow Dash MS.  Someone has to have made a retro 80's Japanese looking gauge cluster.

Using the analog gauges you will need to double up the sensors.  The gauge sending units might be different in their output styles and even if they are identical you do not want extra loading on the ECU sensors. 

Vigo (Forum Supporter)
Vigo (Forum Supporter) MegaDork
8/5/20 10:51 a.m.

I too prefer old looking analog gauges. There are analog wideband gauges that look fairly retro but they are somewhat pricey. There are some cheaper analog narrowband gauges that look ok. If you have a programmable narrowband output on your wideband controller you can probably fiddle with it to work well enough to keep you from blowing up your motor when something is going wrong, but not within tenths of a point of AFR. What I dont know enough to do is build a voltage scaling circuit that would turn a 0-5v wideband signal into a ~10-16v signal where volts=AFR so i could feed it right into an antique voltage gauge which i took apart and covered 'volts' with 'AFR' cheeky  because vintage looking analog voltage gauges are a dime a dozen!

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